

Sat, Jul 11
|First Presbyterian Church of Dutch Neck
Reading, Conversation, Book Signing, and Social Gathering
Search for a Blessing: A Gay Man’s Journey from a Mennonite Missionary Childhood to the Streets of AIDS Activism By Daniel Shenk and Joyce Maxwell
Time & Location
Jul 11, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
First Presbyterian Church of Dutch Neck, 154 S Mill Rd, West Windsor Township, NJ 08550, USA
About the event
Come join the authors in this reading, Q&A and conversation! Daniel Shenk's story serves as both a personal history of growing up in a missionary family in East Africa as well as a micro history of his and others’ grassroots AIDS activism at the height of that crisis in NYC.
The memoir is a narrative of a young man who is raised in relative isolation with his missionary parents and who eventually leaves his Mennonite community for New York City. As Daniel Shenk becomes the one his friends turn to in a crisis, he struggles to relate with a demanding father and uncomprehending siblings. He turns to existential thinkers and progressive theologies and ultimately to a welcoming church community to support him living out as a gay man. Daniel reimagines and transforms his missionary childhood to serve as an activist on the forefront of the AIDS crisis in New York…
